Hi there,I got home yesterday. One week ago I wrote something on my stay in the himalayas which I publish here below. On the ‘Vegetarianism’ page I have also written something on my experiences while taking part in a Kali Puja (an offering of goats to the god Kali). Would love to get your comments and thoughts on that one (especially from vegetarians and Indians!).
23rd of January, 2008
I have come to the end of my trip. I am currently in the train taking me from Delhi to Mumbai, planning to chat away with friends in Mumbai, to visit the university of Pune and to dream away of my beautifull time in the Kumaoni Himalayas…
Kumaon welcomed me with cold temperatures but warm and caring hearts. The people in Avani (the NGO where I helped out at) received me as their guest, threated me as a friend, gave me so much of love and will miss me now that I am gone.
Two months I’ve spent on the premises of Avani, where I could on sunny days enjoy beautifull views on the Gangoli mountain range and when the sky was very clear we could even see the mountains in Nepal. My main objective was to enhance my Hindi further, which I partly achieved upon. I could have learnt more if I had been involved less with my work at the place. I assisted Béatrice who came to teach the dying techniques of Shibori, I started English classes and worked out a follow up system, did a lot of administrative work, I danced, sang and most of all spent time with the people working and living in and around Avani.
I got a good introduction to an interesting NGO such as Avani where learning through experience is one of the core elements of its philosophy. They apply this to clean energy such as solar energy, pine needle gasifier, etc… as well as to the setting up of an independent handicraft enterprise with clothes fabricated with natural dyes only. Apart from this, Avani has set up women empowerment groups, loan systems and literacy programs… All this is run in the many many villages around Avani and organised through various field centers spread all across the area. Digoli is such a field center wherefore it needs half an hour by car and 3 hours by walk to reach it.
Apart from all this I got a better understanding of this rather conservative and distinctive Kumaoni culture and society… Behind the curtains of this colorful conservatism I could find filthy glass through which shimmering light of hope and change is shining through. Although very minor, the light is aspiring and attractive such as the first sun rays at sunrise and despite the filthiness of the window, it shines through where- and whenever possible.
Both positive as well as negative aspects of globalization enhance those changes and Avani is to me a ‘good’ glocalizer. In a society where women are generally told to stay at home and work on the fields, Avani is employing women, giving them an opportunity to distinguish themselves from their husbands family. They are not only employed in the handicrafts section, in the solar section women are also trained as solar technicians… The women groups, life insurance loans and literacy programs enable women to stand up for their rights and needs. And above all, staying at Avani enables them to get exposed to different ideas, to meet different people from allover Kumaon as well as from the rest of India and abroad. But the first rays of the sun are very minor in the morning, and also in Kumaon things change very slowly, ‘dire dire’.
When it came to sexuality and love I had been given very strict orders by Rashmi and Rajneesh (the founders of the program) not to indulge in any sexual or love affairs with the girls staying at Avani. It would create unnecessary problems for Avani, for me and for the respective girl. So I applied some queer-techniques and theater in order to get the confidence of both man and women which enabled me (though limited) to get a better understanding of that filthy glass behind the curtains. And the filthy glass is interesting, very interesting… I wish I could do a PHD on ‘Lust, love and desire in the Kumaon hills’… But how to get closer to a subject which is a taboo-less taboo?????
I am partly flying back… I had been searching for some flight tickets to Iran, the gulf, and other closer countries but couldn’t find any cheap direct flight (did not want to take flights with a stop as that would increase my ecological footprint unnecessarily) so I decided to fly to Istanbul, paying 290 Euro while I could have gotten a ticket of 250 Euro straight to Brussels, thanks to fucking long distance low cost airline: Jet airways! What humans won’t do for the environment 
! From Istanbul I will hitch home…
Will be in Belgium from the 1th, 2nd of February onwards!
with love from the Punjab Mail…
